Why Bother? Randy's Response

In answer to my Why Bother? post, Randy offered an addendum. That addendum along with my response seemed like a fitting blog post in and of itself so here it is.

Randy Says (quite rightly):
You may disagree, but according to my worldview there is another purpose: Service to God. This service can take many forms. For a Christian, serving others is one way that you can serve God.

So I says(quite responsefully):

Randy,

You’re right; it’s the ‘service to God’ that I explicitly omit at the beginning of the entry. I agree that religion is THE quick and easy answer to all the nagging WHY questions. You’ll probably completely fail to believe that I actually considered religion as an answer to this quandary for myself. (Really really.) There are only several reasons why I rejected it though:

1. Which Religion to Pick? Yeah, I know, from the safe and secure harbor of a religion it’s preposterous to think that anyone could possibly have any doubt about what religion was appropriate for others. From your viewpoint as a Christian, I’m sure the answers to that are all sewn up tight. Of course the ONLY reasonable route to go would be (drum roll please): Christian! But see from the outside it’s not that easy.
   
   I know that Christians have a process whereby they ‘shop’ for churches that match their personal beliefs and that makes good, logical sense. Luckily, the field of Christian candidates is comparatively small though so you don’t have to hunt wide and far to find a decent fit. Shopping for religion in a broader sense is a much harder thing though. There’s a lot of room between Quaker and Devil Worshiper so there are a lot of variables to consider. Not the least of which is finding a religion with a local branch office and hours that are compatible with your lifestyle.
2. Overhead. If there’s one thread that recurs throughout my blog posts it’s that of the skeptic. Despite all humanity’s best efforts, I can never accept the metaphysical overhead that’s inherent in the major world religions. I’ll buy almost everything you have to sell up to a very precise point.
   
   Should we follow a standard and fair code of laws? Damn right!
   
   Should we respect each other and ourselves as much as possible? Of course!
   
   Is the Bible a good example of a set of laws by which we should live our lives? Well, not the Old Testament at least. Those people were jerks.
   
   Should we try to live up to the example of Christ and be as much like him as possible. Better than using the average NBA player as your role model.
   
   Is a benevolent and forgiving (or wrathful and generally pissed off) God looking down on us waiting to smite us or elevate us based on our actions and beliefs? Here, of course, is where it all begins to fall apart for me. Sure, there’s a single binding and all-encompassing force that rules the universe. Yeah, you heard me. I said it. It’s called the Laws of Physics. No, I don’t mean the Laws as Man writes them. Those are the shallow interpretations of the Real Laws as seen from our dustmite-like existence. No, I mean the REAL rules. The rules that all infinite Cosmos follows in its day-to-day business. In it’s dispassionate, detached, unemotional day-to-day business. It’s day-to-day business in which a man is no more important than a microbe. That’s the really terrifying part of my belief system. In my church, the universe cares not for you any more than it does the cow you ate for dinner. Your existence or lack thereof is balanced on the head of a pin and the only thing between you and oblivion is your own ability to stay alive. Sometimes that means fighting off a cold and sometimes that means playing nice with the other commuters so they don’t snap and shoot you as you drive down the freeway.
3. Hypocrisy. Lastly, I can’t adopt any mainstream religion at this point because, simply, it would be hypocritical. I’ve said very publicly for quite a while to anyone who would listen that the metaphysical aspects of religion make no sense whatsoever. There’s on new evidence on that front so to simply ‘change my mind’ on the subject would be the act of a hypocrite. I’d be very obviously letting myself hold a different opinion just for the sake of convenience. If there is a greater, judging power to the universe then I would expect such internal inconsistency to be one of the most mortal of sins.

So yes, Randy, I agree that for many people (heck, for 90% of the planet) there is a greater purpose than anything I’ve outlined. Despite your differences, most of you agree that any worldly concerns are trivial when compared to your service to God. Unfortunately, God isn’t exactly here for us to peel grapes for so in most cases ‘Service to God’ seems to boil down to either ‘Service to Humanity’ (My #1) or ‘Service to Church’ (God’s representatives on Earth). Service to Humanity I can live with but Churches, despite all their generally good intentions, are still just people. At their best, they serve as a conduit to help others and at their worst they simply help themselves to your money. So in the end, even ‘Service to God’ seems to boil down to ‘Service to Humanity’.